THE DURHAM DIOCESAN BOARD OF FINANCE

Registered charity 248287 · accounts filings on the Charity Commission register

The objects of the charity are to hold real and personal property for purposes connected with the Church of England and to transact business in connection with the Church of England and the Diocese. The charity is responsible for the collection, custody, disbursement and account of the Diocesan Synod's funds and the employment of all persons in receipt of salaries paid directly from those funds.

Causes: Education/training · Religious Activities · Grant history (this charity is a funder) · website · Get email alerts

Financial health, per its FY2025 accounts

The accounts state that the charity reported an underlying operating deficit of £0.8m for the year ended 31 December 2025, driven by financial pressures on parishes and inflation. Despite this, unrestricted available free reserves were £4.2m, which falls within the stated policy target range of £2.5m to £5.0m, and the trustees confirmed sufficient cash resources to continue as a going concern.

Automated summary of the FY2025 accounts; the evidenced findings below carry the verbatim passages.

What the accounts disclose

Accounts audited by UNW LLP. Discloses 4 of 6 completeness components.

Year-over-year changes

• Top pay band moved from £80,001 - £90,000 (FY2024) to £90,001 - £100,000 (FY2025).

Comparing this charity’s FY2024 and FY2025 accounts as analysed by this site.

Leadership, per the charity’s website

• Rick Simpson — Bishop of Durham (source)

Listed on the charity’s own website when we last crawled it; roles may have changed. Pay-band disclosures above are anonymous statutory disclosures and are not attributed to any named individual.

Property (HM Land Registry)

191 registered titles in England and Wales held by the charity’s company or corporate body (179 freehold); recorded price paid £9.1m. All charity-held property. Contains HM Land Registry data © Crown copyright, OGL v3.0.

Public profiles (found on the charity’s own website): facebook · instagram

Structured financials (annual return, FY ending 31/12/2025)

Reported reserves equal ~5.2 months of spending — above the median for charities its size (median 4.6 months; benchmarks).

Per its annual return, largest income source: Donations and legacies (77% of income) — components as reported reconcile to the return’s total income; not from the accounts narrative.

Per its annual return, cost of raising funds: 0.3% of total income — below the median for charities its size (3.8%) (benchmarks).

Register events

• Received assets from another charity (02/06/2023) — per the register’s event history; asset transfers typically record mergers or reorganisations.
• Received assets from another charity (01/06/2023) — per the register’s event history; asset transfers typically record mergers or reorganisations.
• Received assets from another charity (12/05/2023) — per the register’s event history; asset transfers typically record mergers or reorganisations.
• Received assets from another charity (18/08/2021) — per the register’s event history; asset transfers typically record mergers or reorganisations.

Trustees · trustee networks

• Alison Blackburn
• Barnaby Thomas Huish
• Canon Dr JAMES HERBERT HARRISON · trustee of 2 other charities
• Dr Philip James John Plyming Very Revd
• FRANK ANDREW ROGERS · trustee of 1 other charity
• Frances Ruth Stenlake
• James Hall
• Katherine Janet Bagnall
• Lilian Mary Jordon
• MARGARET LOUISE VAUGHAN · trustee of 2 other charities
• Matthew James Levinsohn
• Nigel Ralph Wyrley-Birch
• Paul William Hobbs
• Rev Paul Andrew Arnold
• Reverend Canon Daine Maria Lindley
• Stephen Lyndon Pickering
• The Right Reverend Richard Lee Simpson Bishop
• Ursula Ruth Hicks
• Ven Elizabeth Mary Wilkinson · trustee of 1 other charity

Trustee list from the Charity Commission register (current, not historical).

Operates in: Darlington · Durham · Gateshead · Hartlepool · South Tyneside · Stockton-on-tees · Sunderland

Income and spending

Common questions

Known funders

Grants to this charity found in funders’ own accounts filings.

Government & lottery funding

Grants to this charity published as open data by government and lottery funders (360Giving).

Funders of similar charities

Funders whose accounts show grants to charities similar to this one (and no recorded grant to this charity) — a starting list for fundraisers.

Charities like this

Semantically similar by activities and financial character, from our analysed corpus. Compare with THE NEWCASTLE DIOCESAN BOARD OF FINANCE.

• THE NEWCASTLE DIOCESAN BOARD OF FINANCE income £8.1m
• GUILDFORD DIOCESAN BOARD OF FINANCE income £15.7m
• THE EXETER DIOCESAN BOARD OF FINANCE income £18.8m
• THE DERBY DIOCESAN BOARD OF FINANCE LIMITED income £11.0m
• THE GLOUCESTER DIOCESAN BOARD OF FINANCE income £24.8m
• MONMOUTH DIOCESAN BOARD OF FINANCE income £3.8m

Side by side with its peers

Each row is that charity’s latest analysed filing; every value is quote-backed on its own page.